


Alternate Realities

by princessoftheworlds



Series: It's not a crime to love what you cannot explain [11]
Category: Gossip Girl, Sherlock (TV), The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV), White Collar
Genre: F/M, Grieving, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-21 20:18:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8259338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessoftheworlds/pseuds/princessoftheworlds
Summary: Three universes where Klaus and Caroline are someone else, and one universe where they are the baby vampire and the Original hybrid.Day One of Fall Klaroline AU Week 2016





	

**Author's Note:**

> A Sherlock, White Collar, and Gossip Girl AU

_Three universes where Klaus and Caroline are someone else, and one universe where they are the baby vampire and the Original hybrid._

XX

  1. **Something more than an assistant to a famous detective**



_“This phone call, it’s… it’s my note. That’s what people do, don’t they? Leave a note.”_

_“Leave a note when? Klaus, you’re starting to scare me!”_

_“I’m sorry, sweetheart. It’s for the best. This is definitely not how I hoped to tell you, but I love you, sweetheart. Always have, always will.”_

_“Klaus?”_

_“Goodbye, Caroline.”_

_“No, don’t-”_

…

“How are you holding up?” Dr. O’Connell asks gently, pen hovering over her notepad. The concern in her eyes is genuine, but Caroline has seen that look one time too many in people’s eyes, concern coupled with pity or sometimes disgust as women turn away or men step back as Caroline passes through the streets of London, whispering behind their covered hands, _She’s the ex-girlfriend of that detective, you know, from last year._

“It’s been months,” Caroline snaps defensively, “how do you think?” She turns her head away from the psychologist, her demeanor becoming more closed off. 

“Caroline, please. Your friends and family are concerned; it’s been almost a year, and you haven’t made any improvements. You don’t appear to making any adjustments.”

When Caroline doesn’t reply, Dr. O’Connell sighs in frustration, setting down her pen. “Caroline, I can’t help you any more than how much you let me.”

“Then, don’t!” the blonde retorts tiredly, her fierce cerulean gaze faltering as she begins to frown.

…

Knowing that no one would be around, the blonde musters the courage to visit the building she hasn’t seen in about a year (or can’t bear to).

She roams the flat, her mind distant, as she trails her hand lightly over a dining table they had last both sat on together, his easel that stands in the corner untouched and accumulating dust, the desk still covered in half-finished sketches and dossiers about their old cases.

The echo of him that is always besides her is at its strongest in this flat, and several times, she turns to make a snide remark or share a private joke before remembering.

It is not until she reaches the bedroom that was originally his that everything comes crashing down.

She pulls out drawers, searching through the familiar sweaters and coats that had been originally set aside in storage for winter but, in actuality, will never been worn again.

In the final, bottom drawer, she finds, tucked in between silk ties and cotton Henleys, a small box, cube-shaped and carved from mahogany.

And, for the first time in months, Caroline Forbes slides to the ground, back braced against wall, trapped with the remnants of her old life with London’s infamous consulting detective Klaus Mikaelson, and begins to sob.

…

_“Is that it?”_

_“Is that what?”_

_“We’ve only just met and we’re gonna go and look at a flat?”_

_“Problem?”_

_“We don’t know a thing about each other; I don’t know where we’re meeting; I don’t even know your name.”_

_“I know that you’re formerly American Special Ops, though you were originally trained as a medic. I know you were recently involved in some kind of crash, most likely classified, forcing you to take an early retirement from your career. I know you’ve got a mother back home in the small-town in Virginia you spent most of early life growing up in, but you have an unstable relationship with her. Former cheerleader and beauty pageant queen. And I know that your therapist thinks your limp’s psychosomatic-quite correctly, I’m afraid.”_

_“Takes a lot of guts to get hands on a classified file, doesn’t it?”_

_“Oh, no, no. I didn’t need to. The name’s Klaus Mikaelson, and the address is 221B Baker Street.”_

XX

  1. **An FBI agent and an art thief**



FBI Agent Caroline Forbes of the New York White Collar Division’s already-shitty day (created by a punctured tire discovered when she accidentally locked herself out of her house and the terrible, terrible coffee in the FBI HQ) only worsens when she gets a phone call informing her that Klaus Mikaelson has escaped from the Super-Max.

Three years ago, Klaus Mikaelson, the biggest bust of Caroline’s career, had been considered the world’s most elusive criminal; he was more of a pest than harmful, a simple gentlemen thief, a suave con man and artist with a knack of slipping in and out of the most heavily-fortified buildings in the world undetected. In a career that had been pinpointed as beginning a decade prior, Mikaelson had pulled off some of the most high-profile heists of the century. He was considered a legend in the crime world and a highly-coveted golden goose challenge to every government in the world. He was untouchable, a slippery fish, until a petite blond junior agent with enough time on her hands and a determination unheard of spent a year and a half on his trail.

Sadly, all of Caroline’s hard work fell in vain when the only charge the federal prosecutor was able to pin on Mikaelson was tax evasion (that too with a reduced sentence), and Mikaelson was sent to a maximum-security prison, ignored by Caroline for the next three and a half years of his four-year sentence until he escaped four hours ago.

“Fuck this,” Caroline groans with irritation as she slams the cordless office phone back onto the desk, accidentally rattling her desk and sending her coffee mug plummeting to the floor.

Caroline watches mournfully as the bitter liquid soaks into the cream carpet, staining it a ugly, plain brown.

…

“How did he get out?” Caroline growls to the idiotic prison warden who let one of the best thieves of the last half century _literally_ walk out of a prison.

“He disguised himself as a serviceman and exited via the maintenance entrance, hotwiring a truck in the parking lot.” The warden shrinks under the fiery gaze of the blonde decked out in a smart pantsuit and heels.

“You have security cameras all over this prison!” she admonishes them fiercely. “How did he escape those?”

“He knew their blind spots?” the warden offers up nervously.

Caroline sighs in frustration. “And dare I even as how he procured the disguise?”

“Online,” the warden tells her. “He swiped a prison guard’s credit card.”

…

Caroline finally tracks down Mikaelson to an apartment in New York that she realizes to be the last-known address of Tatia Petrova.

Klaus is sitting there, back braced against a concrete column, breathtakingly handsome in a plain white t-shirt and barefoot, blond curls messily rumpled, features gaunt. He is caressing a Boudreaux wine bottle in his hands, rotating it delicately as he examines the opaque glass.

Her heels click across the concrete floor as she strides into the single bedroom. “I see Tatia moved out. She left you a message in that bottle?”

“The message is the bottle,” Klaus replies charmingly but with his usual charisma lacking. “It’s been a while.”

“Yeah,” she snorts humorlessly, “a few years, give or take.”

There is a slight pause before she speaks, just as bluntly as before. “They asked me, what makes a criminal like you pull a boneheaded escape with four months to go?”

“Guess you figured it out,” he remarks, eyes still focused on the bottle.

“I watched the tape of the last day Tatia came to see you,” Caroline admits. There is no response from Klaus so she continues. “Your girlfriend says goodbye to you in prison and gets busy with her disappearing act. The trail ends here. But you knew that already.”

“Missed her by two days.”

“Still,” Caroline says, shrugging. “Only took you a month and a half to escape a supermax. Color me impressed.”

“That’s what I strived to do,” he states dryly.

There is a buzz of static as the receiver attached to Caroline’s ear relays a message to her. She doesn’t react to the words of the agent on the other end and speaks back into her receiver, “Subject identified and unarmed.”

Klaus raises an eyebrow. “We surrounded?” At Caroline’s nod, he asks, “How many?”

“Including my agents?” Caroline ponders for a moment. “And the Marshalls? All of them.”

He nods, thoughtful expression on his face, in response.

“So what’s the message?” Caroline blurts out and regrets it when Klaus appears to have been startle out of a daze. She has always been this way around Klaus Mikaelson the few times they have met and spoken, unintentionally blunt and abrupt.

“Goodbye.”

Klaus sets down the bottle, gazing at it mournfully. 

Caroline’s hand is slipping down to the handcuffs tucked in her pocket as she turns to walk towards Klaus when he speaks suddenly.

“Something’s wrong. Tatia’s in danger.”

Caroline freezes in her tracks. “Why?” she asks coolly. “Why do you think that?”

“She stopped visiting me. She’s visited me in prison for the last three years and then suddenly stops? Doesn’t that seem suspicious?”

“Maybe she grew tired of you,” she remarks.

“Please.”

He looks up at her, and Caroline’s taken aback at how transparent his eyes are, striking blue and expressively-honest.

This is not the Klaus Mikaelson that Caroline has previously met and grown accustomed to; this is a glimpse behind the mask, a glimpse of the man, not the cunning thief or suave conman.

“Please,” he repeats tiredly.

Caroline closes her eyes and breathes in and out slowly, bringing her mind back under control.

Klaus is right in being suspicious.

Though she has only met Petrova once, Caroline has seen enough of that tricky woman to know that Tatia is truly in love with Klaus, devoted to him.

She wouldn’t leave him. At least not willingly.

“We’ll find her,” Caroline promises genuinely. “I swear.”

“No.”

His quiet refusal has her stealing a look at his eyes again.

“I need to find her; it has to be me.”

She sighs. “Mikaelson, the only thing you need right now is to get to your prison cell. Besides, there is no legal way that you’d be able to-”

“There is a way,” Klaus says wildly. “It’s rare, almost unheard of, but it’s legal. I’ll be getting another four-year sentence, right? You or the FBI can request for that sentence to carried out by your side; I’ll be released into your custody. I’ll be a valuable asset, a criminal consultant.”

“Who’s saying you won’t just escape?” she protests feebly.

“A security bracelet will prevent that. Or maybe, an GPS tracking anklet monitor. Those are supposed to be tamper-proof. Besides, you and the FBI need me; I’m the best thief the world has seen in the last decade.” Klaus smirks, arrogance barely crowding the desperation out of his expression.

“I don’t know.” Caroline rubs at the crease between her eyebrows.

Klaus’ face falls, and he glances away from Caroline.

She sets her shoulders stiffly. “I can’t make any promises, but I will make sure my superiors consider it.”

“Good.” Klaus’s gaze travels around the room before settling on Caroline, and he frowns. “Are those the same heels you were wearing when you arrested me?”

Caroline scowls. “Versace isn’t cheap. And don’t try your luck, Mikaelson.”

XXX

  1. **Two Upper East Side teenagers**



_Hey, Upper East Siders, Gossip Girl here…and I have news! Get this; one of my many sources,_ livthewitchbitch, _sends us this: Spotted at Grand Central, Elena Gilbert, bag in hands, clearly in a rush. Was it only a year ago our infamous It-Girl mysteriously disappeared, off to quote-unquote boarding school? And, just as suddenly, she’s back? Does Elena’s best friend Caroline know that Elena’s back? C. had a pretty good year without E. around; looks like that’s going to change._

…

“Caroline, Elena’s here!”

Still in the reverie of her boyfriend Stefan slowly and seductively nipping up her neck as her body sinks further back into the plush mattress, Caroline ignores her mother’s announcement until it suddenly occurs to her what Liz has said.

“Wait, what?” Caroline jolts up, tearing herself from Stefan’s embrace. “Elena’s back in town?” She sneaks a bewildered glance at her boyfriend’s face.

With the same wide eyes and startled expression that Caroline imagines that she is currently wearing, Stefan pushes himself to a sitting position and reaches to button his dress shirt back up. “Yeah,” he says casually. “You didn’t know? I thought you’d have seen the Gossip Girl post by now.”

“No, I didn’t,” Caroline tells her boyfriend, ignoring the burning in the pit of her stomach. “Whatever. We gotta go.”

They rush to redress themselves and burst out of Caroline’s bedroom door the moment Elena arrives in front of it.

“Caroline!” Elena exclaims, beaming down at the blonde before snatching her up in a tight hug.

When Elena finally releases her and steps back, Caroline gets her first good look at the brunette.

She has obviously lost some weight in the last year, and some of the baby fat from her face has smoothed out, but Elena still has the same gorgeous olive skin and big doe eyes and her hair is braided back.

Next to her, in a rumpled white lace Liz Forbes dress and her blond curls in a slight disarray, Caroline feels inadequate.

“Elena,” Caroline replies icily, with a nod of acknowledgement. To Caroline’s pride, Elena flinches.

“Oh, Stefan!” Elena is bounding forward again to pull Stefan into a quick hug. “How have you been?”

“I’m great. What about you, Lena? Do your moms know you’re back?” Stefan asks with a smile.

“I think so. Kat said she’d tell Jeremy. Did you hear that Tatia’s been nominated for a Golden Globe? Jenna’s so proud.” Elena’s smile, so bright and happy for her older sister, causes Caroline’s head to spin.

Elena Marie Gilbert, oh so perfect. Despite her unsavory background, Elena is adored by the Upper East Side. Never mind that Elena lives with and has been raised by her aunt and uncle, adoptive parents Grayson and Miranda; never mind that her birth was the result of Grayson’s younger brother John knocking up teenaged model Isobel Flemming when they were nineteen. Never mind that John skipped town and Isobel will never win Birth Mother of the Year, nothing has ever gotten in Elena’s way. She has the perfect support of siblings, eldest sculptor Amara who lives in Europe with her husband Silas, model and actress Tatia who is also in Europe, her socialite sister Katherine, her younger brother Jeremy, and her cool aunt Jenna.

Everyone falls at the feet of Elena Gilbert: boys, other girls, parents, college representatives, teachers. Since Caroline has been six and friends with Elena, she has remained in Elena’s shadow.

“Oh, how wonderful,” Caroline responds dryly, mind wandering. “I think I hear my mother calling. Goodbye, Elena. Stefan.” She turns to her boyfriend and kisses him for longer than is really polite but really only wants to make Elena uncomfortable. Releasing Stefan, she murmurs into his ear, “We’ll continue this later.”

Strolling off, Caroline pretends to not have notice Elena’s small frown.

…

For three weeks, Elena and Caroline dance around each other. Every time Elena attempts to approach Caroline, she is met with terse silence and the equivalent of a brick wall.

Finally, the tension boils over when Stefan chooses to reveal that the reason Elena left town was because Caroline’s former best friend and beloved boyfriend slept together at the Lockwood wedding last spring.

“I know I made a mistake,” Elena says, staring up at Caroline with those big beseeching doe eyes, the ones that prompt everyone to forgive her. “And I couldn’t bear it; I felt so guilty. But, now, I’m back so that we can fix things.”

“Fix things?” Caroline asks with calm, deadly fury.

“I want us to go back to the way we used to be, Caroline, us being best friends,” Elena pleads.

“Things will never, can never go back to the way they used to be,” the blonde replies, eyes hardening.

“Don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic, Care?” Stefan interjects suddenly. “Elena’s trying to apologize.” He gazes at the brunette with soft eyes and a slight smile, the way he hasn’t even glance at Caroline in in over half a year.

Caroline feels the anger grow, burning painfully and deeply in her chest, the only emotion more powerful than the pitiful twinges of her broken, aching heart. “Dramatic?” she nearly-growls. “You slept with my best friend who I’ve known since I was six, who was practically _my sister_ , and then had the gall to lie about it to my face for more than half a year.” Her voice lightens, becoming more vulnerable. “We’d dated since we were twelve, Stefan. You were the first love of my life. We promised each other our virginity.” The toxic fury returns to her tone. “Then you went and slept with Elena Gilbert. The girl can have anyone, _anyone_ , she wants, and she chooses you.”

“Caroline…” Stefan says warningly, his tone growing harsh.

“No!” she cries. “Fuck you, Stefan Salvatore! You’re a lying, deceptive son of a bitch. You and Elena deserve each other.” With the final word, Caroline snatches her purse up and storms into the hallway.

“Caroline.” Elena grabs her sleeve, latching on desperately.

Caroline turns around, and the brunette is taken aback by the sheer lack of emotion in the blonde’s eyes.

“Caroline,” Elena repeats more loudly. “What happened to you?” she asks judgmentally. “You’ve changed.”

“I’ve changed.” Caroline laughs hollowly. “ _I’ve_ changed? _You’ve_ changed, Elena Gilbert. What happened to the sweet, little girl who surprised me with a limited-edition American Girl doll the birthday my parents announced their fourth miscarriage? What happened to the thirteen-year-old Elena who pulled my hair back when we got sloppy drunk for the first time and spent the morning puking? I spent years in your shadow; I watched you change. You became an attention-seeking homewrecker, the sixteen-year-old whore who created scandals, partying past dawn on school nights.”

“You’d clearly know,” Elena says curtly. “I’ve heard your reputation. The stone-cold bitch who rules our private school with an iron fist. The neurotic queen bee who’s really just an insecure little girl upset that her _daddy’s run off with another man_. I wonder if your subjects would like to hear more.”

Caroline frowns, a slight glimmer of heartbreak visible in her cerulean eyes. “I’m glad to see the real you, Elena,” she retorts harshly. “You know what else happened when my dad moved away with his boyfriend? My mom was diagnosed with cancer. Six months left. She’s not going to survive.”

The harshness in Elena’s expression dissipates, leaving only concern and guilt. “Caroline, I didn’t know…”

“Of course, you didn’t know.” Caroline’s voice cracks. “You were gone; you were gone the entire time. You were my best friend, I loved you, and you were gone the time I needed you.” She is sobbing, tears streaming down her face in wet trails, chest heaving pathetically. “I could have gotten over you and Stefan; where were you? I didn’t know what was going on anymore.”

“Caroline.”

The brunette is sniffling a little. “Caroline, wait.”

She reaches for the blonde, but Caroline has already disappeared.

…

She tosses back drink after drink until the oaky flavor of her bourbon blends together with the bland taste of the water she drinks in between. Her vision is starting to get slightly blurry around the corners, but she can still think quite clearly for the amount of alcohol she’s had.

But, maybe, another drink, less diluted this time, will bring on the fuzziness she so _craves **.**_

Because, that’s the only way to avoid thinking about what happened today.

“Rough day?” comes a smoky voice, accented and rich like the bourbon Caroline had been able to taste the first couple glasses back.

“Fuck off, Mikaelson,” Caroline practically growls. “I know you’ve read Gossip Girl.”

“Yes, I have, love.” Klaus Mikaelson takes a seat next to her, still dressed dapperly in his suit from the party. “And I do not understand everyone’s obsession with Elena Gilbert. She has three sisters who practically are doppelgangers of her.”

“At least, someone thinks that,” Caroline mutters angrily.

His eyes light up mischievously as he summons the bartender over for a drink.

“Stefan is a bit thick. I can’t defend my best mate when he traded _you_ in for a copy.” Klaus’ heavily-lidded gaze travels over Caroline’s body as he smirks devilishly.

“Can it, Klaus; we all know you sleep with anything that moves. We’ve heard about your escapades with the Castles.” She sighs distractedly. “Sleeping with the wife _and_ the husband? Not classy.”

“Aurora and Lucien were well-worth it. Besides, I made them realize how much they truly disliked each other and their marriage.” Scooting closer on his barstool, he tugs at a blond curl, and Caroline shivers. “And I’ve know you’ve done some unsavory things, too, Forbes. Recall sophomore year.”

“You said that you’d never mention that again,” she hisses.

Klaus shrugs. “You seduced a police officer to get Elena out of jail. We’ve all done things we’re not proud of. I have to be proud of helping the Castles’ marriage.”

There is a buzz, and Klaus fishes his phone out of his pocket, unlocking it to find a new Gossip Girl post.

It’s a picture of Stefan and Elena gazing adoringly into each other’s eyes, and Caroline wants to cry.

The picture is captioned: _Is E. getting her star-crossed love or is she just C.’s wicked witch_?

Caroline grabs the bottle that the bartender has just brought Klaus and holds it to her lips, gulping down sip after sip of pure bourbon.

“Slow, sweetheart. A hangover at Sunday brunch will be a killer,” Klaus says.

“Fuck off.”

“Everyone knows, Forbes, that you are the better choice over Gilbert,” Klaus tells her honestly.

Taken aback, Caroline glances quickly at Klaus.

The emotion in his eyes seems genuine.

Five hours ago, Caroline had zipped herself up into a backless gown that her mother had designed, wearing it above her best lingerie, determined to finally have her night with Stefan.

While that never happened, no need for Caroline not to get laid, right?

Besides, Klaus is easy on the eyes and Stefan’s best friend. It’s only fitting that Salvatore gets a taste of his own medicine.

“Wanna get out of here, Mikaelson?” Caroline asks sultrily.

“Thought you’d never ask.” He grins at her, reaching to grab an unopened bourbon bottle from behind the bar before following her to his limo.

…

_Well, well, well. Looks like Princess C.’s night won’t end in disaster. Has C. found her new prince? K. does have a lot of notches on his bedpost. Like business mogul father Mikael Mikaelson, like son?_

_Could this be the start of something beautiful, or is it the beginning of the end?_

_You know you love me._

_XOXO,_

_Gossip Girl_

XXX

**Or:**

**Themselves**

_“Are you to kill me?”_

_“On your birthday? Do you really think so low of me?”_

_“Yes.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Taking requests for drabbles here and on tumblr. Find me here:
> 
> http://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/


End file.
